Members of council planning committees should have compulsory training and those without it should be banned.

This is the call from Colin Brown, head of planning at property firm Carter Jonas, ahead of the Autumn Statement tomorrow.

“The Government has reaffirmed its commitment to housing under the new leadership of Theresa May and Philip Hammond with significant public money already invested in several initiatives. However, the planning system is still not working in an optimal way to enable sites to be brought forward to address the much-publicised shortfall,” Brown says.

“We would like to see greater emphasis placed on Local Plan adoption and, crucially, granting implementable planning permissions for allocated sites. The Government needs to provide clear guidance on the application of the national affordable housing threshold and, as identified by the Local Plan Experts Group, a standardised approach to calculating the objectively assessed housing need and housing land supply.

“Remodelling the local Planning Committee process to include compulsory training for members and a ban on untrained substitutes would ensure a more efficient process overall and that sites are assessed on a needs basis.

“As always, we would welcome a significant increase in the number of government inspectors to reduce the excessive timescales currently associated with appeals.

“Along with further efforts to identify suitable sites, these relatively simple measures could have a transformative impact on the delivery of housing across the UK.”